In earlier decades, it was possible for business managers to rise up the ranks by learning tricks of the trade along the way. Management training and development was organized by the respective companies themselves. Now things have changed with the decline of these academy companies, even onboarding needs to be organized by oneself. As an example, one can cite Proctor and Gamble’s training module in the 1980s which looked more like a catalogue for university courses. Now Coca-Cola simply poaches already polished talent from other firms. A lot of such leader companies of the past have seen their top executives changed resulting in this transformation in leadership development. GE ousted its CEO for under-performance, P&G is changing its whole business model, Nokia has lost business heavily to Apple and Android, Unilever is currently engaged in cost-cutting whole Capital One has seen lowering down of its asset quality. Thus, future capability training has to be proactively arranged by the motivated professionals. A sound onboarding system enables a head-start for any young professional, especially a first-time manager.

Source:https://www.forbes.com/sites/georgebradt/2017/08/01/how-the-decline-of-academy-companies-affects-you/#27fd363d2b0b

Uploaded Date:16 August 2017

Gamification is proving to be a great success in the field of employees’ corporate training. It is a more engaging method enabling thorough understanding of the situation while also getting some fun and frolic. Gamification enables employees greater psychological reward and research has proven that knowledge retention increases. The trainees too receive instant feedback. Gamification is best suited to the Millennial generation as they are habituated to such games from an early stage in life, and are generally known for an otherwise lower span of attention. Among roles, gamification works best in sales, customer support, IT and executive leaders. Ultimately though all games devised for training must understand that the mastery of skills is most important and not the winning of points or badges. A sense of social learning gets forged when employees see each other’s scores on the tables.

Source:https://www.trainingzone.co.uk/community/blogs/alexk/why-gamifying-employee-training-works

Uploaded Date:05/07/2017

Gamification refers to the use of game elements into non-game situations. Increasingly it is being made use of in corporate training. It is particularly helpful in re-skilling which refers to contexts where employees already possess a certain skills set, but need to upgrade due to technological disruptions. It is so effective due to the fun element that is conducive to learning. Human beings are known to have short attention spans, and now getting worse due to the constant churn in technology. So while byte sized learning and data driven customization do exist, none are as effective as gamification as the latter allows complete freedom to absorb new modalities. There are three major outcomes of gamification, first of them being progression which works through a narrative curated. It creates levels, stages, milestones, conflicts and the learner can map progress towards the final goal. A certain sense of pride is also evoked as the trainee gets publicly rewarded for completing levels. Another major outcome is the play part as it provides unfettered entertainment while also helping overcome numerous challenges. Code School is one venture ideal for providing this sort of training.

Source:http://www.dqindia.com/gamification-in-learning-a-major-breakthrough-for-re-skilling/

Uploaded Date:27/06/2017

Managing digital transformation is the key to success in the e-commerce field. A different mindset is needed instead of the conventional retail ideas. But commonly some steps have been found that are symptoms of mismanagement affecting such firms. The first such symptom is a lack of customer engagement. A lot of these companies also suffer from periodic changes to the sales process. Business innovation involves experiment where without doubt occasional failures will arise. These failures must be treated as part of the learning curve. Yet some companies do not use them as proper tests to learn. IT is one aspect which needs to adapt fast with change, especially LEAN and agile methods. This doesn’t happen at mismanaged organizations and they also suffer from poor returns on investment.

Source:https://econsultancy.com/blog/69001-digital-leadership-why-change-management-is-key-to-ecommerce-success/

Uploaded Date: 22nd May 2017

Any advertisement for a business school or training agency is bound to throw up some common parameters. While there may be others, the most common point found more often than not is the advertisement on the credentials of the teachers / trainers. The more the degrees achieved, more prestigious the institutes studied at, or greater the corporate milestones, increases the credibility of the institute / agency employing them. But the moot point is, does a successful career ensure the person will be a successful trainer. I will take example from an unlikely source to debate this matter.

Football is the world’s most popular sport both in terms of number of people as well as countries participating seriously. In Europe, South & Central America, Africa, East & WestAsia, the sport stands number one often without any rivalry. In North America, Oceania and South Asia the sport may not be number one but has avid following. Surely this sport can teach us something about human behavior as well as training methods. Let’s take a look at some of the most successful managers / coaches at the highest level of this sport over a period of time.

Football like most sports till the 1950s had relatively little professionalization. This meant that beyond the actual playing hours, unlike the modern times, not much thought went into tactics or fitness regimes to outperform other teams. It was Vicente Feola as coach of the Brazilian national team during the 1958 World Cup who for the first time introduced certain functional tactics (to win rather than entertain), diet regimes, psychiatrist, fitness schedules and other such innovations. The 1960s were remembered as the era of BelaGuttmanand Helenio Herrera for revolutionizing how the game was approached and winning more trophies than could be offered. Herrera in fact devised the Catenacciostyle of defensive play which till today embodies the Italian approach. The 1970s saw a return to the free flowing days thanks to the Dutch coach – RinusMichels- and his impact on the sport. His system –Total Football- relied on the entire team playing in unison and swapping positions at will. The 1980s saw unparalleled success from the Englishmen – Bob Paisleyand Brian Clough. The last 2 and a half decades have seen the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson, Jose MourinhoandArrigoSacchiattain yet more devastating success. This is by no means an exhaustive list, just an indicator.

Now that we have seen the list of most successful coaches / managers in football, by using the formulae of business schools and training agencies, let us analyze the playing careers of these illustrious men. Surely, if they have developed such great teams and mentored great players under their training, they must have all themselves had stellar playing careers winning trophies with top clubs and at international tournaments. How else will they train others if they aren’t successful themselves is the rhetoric any business school marketer will spout out. So let us go through their playing careers.

Vicente Feola never played professional football, he was a physical education teacher at a school. BelaGuttman had a journeyman’s career never settling in at one club long enough, playing internationally for then unfancied Hungary before his career was cut short in the 1930s because he was a Jew. World War 2 similarly impacted the career of Helenio Herrera who otherwise played for a motley of clubs in Europe and Morocco. RinusMichels had a slightly more successful career but a back injury ended his playing career at the age of 30. Brian Clough did one better by retiring at age 29 due to knee problems. Bob Paisley or Sir Alex Ferguson never played international football. ArrigoSacchi and Jose Mourinho never played professional football at any level. So by applying the business school formula, how did these failures end up so well on the other side? How is it possible that such men who have never ‘been there and done that’ mentored players with far greater talent than themselves, with proportionately high incomes / egos? How in fact did they actually instill fear which is literally how most players refer to these men?

A theory says that failure in real life prepares one to accept that different players have different skills sets or the lack of them. It builds in them patience while at the same time instilling a hunger to achieve something. Also it has been suggested that players who were themselves highly talented would expect others to execute their skill levels, which is usually not possible. The less talented ones would have greater attention to detail as they have had to struggle in their careers. Of course there are notable exceptions and there have been successful footballers like JosipGuardiola and Johan Cruyff who have gone on to become top managers. But for every such success story come 10 failures while the list of top managers usually throws up names of failed players.

What if we were to apply this same criteria to training agencies and business schools? An MBA from a tier 3 business school teaching students at an IIM? A mid-level executive who has been passed on for promotions, training managers for potential CEO position? Perhaps this may not be a great approach. But the idea behind this thought is that successful students / professionals do not in any way guarantee success as trainers. Rather it is the relatively less talented student / professional who will have empathy for the mediocre student. This category will also be able to devise the complex coaching methods and learning curve ideal for students / trainees to come up the level. Training is an independent profession in itself requiring devoted time towards analyzing exact needs of trainees. A one size fits all formula will not work especially with a diversifying economy. This further validates the requirement for ‘train the trainer’ as training or teaching are careers in themselves.

Today Sir Alex Ferguson post his retirement from one of the world’s biggest sports teams, is a lecturer at Harvard Business School where he speaks on leadership. If the football world had parameters to hire people by the same formula as today’s corporates seem to be, would he ever have even had a pot shot at the same?Probably not. But it is hoped that the students he trains at Harvard will imbibe some of that spirit and will look beyond the usual lazy selection criteria when it is their turn to hire trainers and market a training product. 

By.Aritro Dasgupta